Process for the production of coated fabrics and the like



Aug. 21,, 1923.

H. E. BROWN ET AL PROCESS FOR THE PRODUCTION OF COATED FABRICS AND THE LIKE Original Filed Sept. 29. 1921 Patented Aug. 21, 1923.

UNITED STATES 1,465,541 PATENT OFFICE.

HERMAN E. BROWN, OF KINGSTON, NEW YORK, AND JORDAN HOMER STOYER, OF NUTLEY, NEW JERSEY, ASSIGNORS, BY MESNE ASSIGNMENTS, TO MULTI-FABRIC CORPORATION, OF NEW YORK, N. Y., A CORPORATION OF NEW YORK.

PROCESS FOR THE PRODUCTION OF COATED FABRICS AND THE LIKE.

Application filed September 29, 1921, Serial No. 504,185. Renewed January 30, 1923.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, HERMAN E. BROWN,

a citizen of the United States, residing at Kingston, in the county of Ulster and State of New York, and JORDAN HOMER Srovnn, a citizen of the United States,

residing at Nutley, in the county of Essex and State of New Jersey, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Processes For the Production of Coated Fabrics and the like; and we do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enableothers skilled in .the art to which it ap ertains to make and use the same.

or invention consists in the novel features hereinafterdescribed, reference being had to the accompanying drawing which shows one manner of carrying our invention into effect, selected by us for purposes of illustration, and the said invention is fully disclosed in the following description and claims.

This invention consists in a method for the production of coated sheet material suitable for use as a substitute for leather for automobile and other vehicle tops, upholstery, oil cloths, waterproof covering material, etc., in such a manner as to secure a substantially perfect bondin between the base fabric or material an the coating which is applied thereto.

It is a well known fact that one of the greatest objections encountered in the use of coated fabrics of this kind is a tendency of the coating to peel off or separate from the base fabric upon which it is placed, exposing the base fabric to wear and to the weather, resulting not only in unsightliness but in the rapid destruction or deteriora tion of the sheet material itself.

Our present invention is based upon our discovery that by employing a base fabric of unwoven fibres (preferably unspun fibres) impregnated with and consolidated by means of a plastic binding material, and by preparing the surface of such base material to be coated in such a manner that it is roughened and presents interstices between the coated fibres into which the coating material may penetrate and become interlocked, and also having outwardly projecting coated fibres which extend into and are surrounded by the material of the surface cpating, a double bonding between the base material .or fabric and the surface coat1n g is effected which makes it practically impossible to separate the surface coatlng from the base material under any ordinary conditions of use or misuse. This process and the resulting fabric are broadly claimed in our companion ap lication filed 1n the United States Patent fiice September 29, 1921, and given Serial No. 504,186. Our present invention is also based on our further discovery that the base material above referred to can be prepared in a very advantageous manner for the application of the surface coating, by forming the material of greater thickness than that desired for the base fabric of the coated sheet material to be manufactured and splitting the impregnated fibrous base material either before or after vulcanization, whereby sheets of the desired thickness may be obtained having a roughened surface provided with interstices to receive and interlock with portions of the surface coating material and having projecting coating fibres projecting above the general plane of the roughened surface to extend into and become interlocked with the material of the surface coating.

In the accompanying drawing,

Fig. 1 represents diagrammatically a sectional view of a fibrous base material of the character deslred for the base fabric of the coated sheet material.

Fig. 2 is a similar view showing the manner of splitting the fibrous base material to produce roughened surfaces having interstices and projecting coated fibres to receive and interlock with a surface coating.

Fig. 3 is a similar sectional view representing one of the split portions of the fibrous material provlded with a surface coating interlocked therewith.

In carrying our invention into effect, we take a fibrous sheet material composed of fibres preferably unspun and unwoven, such as cotton wadding, cotton batting, felt, or the like, and impregnate the same with an elastic flexible .plastic binding material which is thoroughly incorporated with the fibrous non-woven material so as to coat the individual fibres thereof and consolidate them. The binder employed may be such a flexible binder as is described in our copend;

ing application Serial No. 480,226, filed June 24, 1921, for example, or it may be any other well known type of binder, such as rubber compositions, rubber cement, etc. The binding material may be applied mechanically in a dough like condition and forced into and through the fabric, or it may be applied by dispersing the binding material in a suitable dispersing agent and applying it in liquid form, and permitting the dispersing agent to evaporate. The fibrous material impregnated with the binder ma be vulcanized, or not, as desired. Ot er binders which may be employed are asphaltines, pitches, flexible lues, highly boiled oils, etc. We have found that when unwoven fabrics of this character are impregnated with binders, in the manner described, the exterior surfaces of the fabrics so produced, which are usually given a final compression between rollers or other smooth surfaces, are usually matted down very smoothly and if such smooth surfaces of the fabrics were coated with ordinary coating materials, a line of cleava e between the coatin and the material wou d exist and the coatings themselves would be readily detachable from the base material. In order to prepare the base material for coating, in accordance with our present process, we make the material of greater thickness than the desired thickness of the base of the coated fabric to be produced, and split the fabric after it has been impregnated with the plastic binding material. For example, Fig. 1 of the accompanying drawing illustrates a fibrous unwoven material, 1, in which the fibres, indicated at 2, have been impregnated with and consolidated by means of a suitable plastic binder, indicated at 3, the material being made in this instance double the thickness desired in the base material of a coated fabric and being designed to be separated or split on the plane indicated by the line ww of %ig. 2 represents the same fabric, a portion of which at one end has been split or separated in the manner above described to produce two sections of base material suitable for use in the manufacture of a coated fabric. In effecting the splitting or separation of the fibrous impregnated fabric, 1, it will readily be understood that the op posed faces of the two sections will be roughened by the separation of the fibres and the tenacity of the plastic binding material and there will result on each of the opposed faces, interstices or recesses between the adjacent impregnated fibres of the fabric into which the material of a surface coating may enter and with which it may become interlocked in a manner similar to the interlocking of plaster with lathing. Such interstices are indicated diagrammatically at 14 in Fig.

1,4ease1 2 of the drawing. It will also be understood that the separation or splitting of the fibrous impregnated material will also have the effect of leavin on each of the roughened surfaces outwa l rojectin coated fibres extending beyon tiie genera plane of the contiguous surface, in a manner indicated diagrammatically at 55 in Fig. 2, which proecting fibres will be interlocked with and surrounded by the material of a surface coating applied to such surface of the base material.

In Fig. 3 we have shown one section of the materia, indicated in Fig. 2, after being split, coated with a surface coating, indicated at 6, which may be p-yroxylin, ruober compound, boiled oil coating, or other well known forms of surface coating, for the purpose of simulatin sired surface effect. n-Fig. 3 we have illustrated more or less diagrammatically the manner in which the material 6 of the surface coating becomes interlocked with the interstices 4 of the roughened face of the base fabric, 1, and also the manner in which the upstanding or projecting coated fibres 5 of the base material, 1, extend into, are surrounded by, and are embedded in the material, 6, of the surface coating.

The resulting fabric obtained, in accordance with our process is a coated material useful as a leather substitute or for other purposes in which the coating is doubly bonded or interlocked with the base material, so that under any ordinary conditions of use or misuse it cannot be split away from or separated from the base material, thus greatly increasing the durability and utility of the fabric. It is to be understood that the splitting. of the fibrous impregnated fabric from which the base material is obtained can'be effected in any desired manner, such as by starting the split and rolling each section on a suitable drawing roller, either with or without the use of a knife. It is also to be understood that the fibrous impregnated material may be made of such thickness that it may be s lit into two or any number of sections and that where, by splitting the material into three or more sections, sections are provided having both faces roughened in the manner described, a

leather or other de-' surface coating may be applied to both faces if desired, or one only of said faces may be coated and the other smoothed down by rolling or otherwise. It is also to be understood that in the preparation of the fibrous impregnated material it may be built up in suitable layers of fibrous material, each layer being separately impregnated and combined with other layers, or otherwise, for the purpose of facilitating the separation'between the sections in splitting the fibrous impregnated material, if desired.

It is also to be understood. th t in plittn? the fibrous impregnated material, the di erent sections so separated may be of different thicknesses, if desired, and the splitting may be effected when the material is either hot or cold, and either before or after vulcanization, as may be desired. It is also to be understood that the coating material may be applied in any desired manner, either in liquid form, as by means of a knife, brush, roller or doctor, or by calendering or frictioning or skimming, or by applying a heated oil, tar or similar coating by passing the base material over a drum with the coating material adhering to its surface, and the coating material may be applied in a single operation, or in a number of successive relatively thin coats, as ma be found most advantageous.

\l hat we claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent is 1. The herein described process of making coated fabrics, which consists in preparing a non-woven fibrous sheet material by impregnating the same with a flexible binding compound, splitting the impre ated fibrous non-woven material to pro uce a roughened bonding face thereon, and applying the surface coating of flexible material to said roughened bonding face.

2. The herein described process of making coated sheet material, which consists in preparing a base material composed of nonwoven, unspun fibres, by impregnating it with an elastic binding material so as to coat the individual fibres thereof and consolidate them, splitting the said fibrous nonwoven material so that the separation of the coated fibres adjacent to the line of separation between sections of the material will produce a roughened bonding surface, providing interstices between the coated fibres of the fabric and projecting coated fibres extending above the general plane of the bonding surface, and applying a surface coating of flexible material to said bonding surface of the base material, and causing it to interlock into the interstices between the fibres of the base material and to surround and embed the projecting fibres in the surface coating 3. The herein described process of making coated sheet material which consists in forming a base material of superposed layers of non-woven fibrous material, impregnated with a flexible binding compound, separating said base material to form a roughened bonding surface by the seperation of the contiguous impregnated fibrous layers, and applying a surface coating of flexible material to such bonding surfaces.

4. The herein described process of making coated sheet material, which consists in impregnating a fibrous non-woven felted material with a flexible plastic binding compound, and compressing it to coat the fibres of the base material and consolidate them, splitting the impregnated and consolidated material to provide the separated portions thereof with roughened bonding surfaces by the separation of the coated fibres, forming interstices between the fibres, and projecting coated fibres extending above the general surface of the sections, and applying a flexible surface coating to the bonding surface of said base material so as to interlock it in the interstices of the fibres thereof and to embed the projecting fibres in the surface coating.

In testimony whereof we affix our signatur s.

e HERMAN E. BROWN.

JORDAN HOMER STQVER. 

